Running To You
by icecreamcastles
Summary: "I'm running to you and Rory before you fade from me." - River finds out the Doctor has been going back to see the Ponds. (7x04 'The Power Of Three', post-'Angels Take Manhattan') - (one-shot)


Title: Running To You

11/River

Summary: _"I'm running to you and Rory before you fade from me." - River finds out the Doctor has been going back to see the Ponds._ (7x04 'The Power Of Three', post-'Angels Take Manhattan')

Disclaimer: Characters not my own. This has been a disclaimer.

**AN**: "Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end ... But not always in that order." – That was said in a Series 7A Trailer and it makes more sense now than it did then. It's a pretty good guess that The Doctor had already lost the Ponds in Manhattan by the time the episode 'The Power Of Three' happened so that's where this is fic is stemming from.

* * *

He'd been trying to learn more about the little cubes that had appeared on Earth. They'd been dealt with but he still wanted to work them out some more. He wasn't going to chance leaving them with his Ponds so he took the little black boxes with him. He couldn't bear letting anything happen to them. Not again.

He'd missed them so much, so helplessly. He'd convinced himself it was worth the risk to go back in time where they were living and breathing and_ there_. He only wishes it wouldn't hurt so much to look at them both. Rory and Amy. They already know something was wrong but they hadn't tried to ask him about it.

A sprinkle of static catches his ear. His hearts warmed with the familiar sound.

"Hello, sweetie."

"Wife! I was wondering when you'd pop in!" The Doctor turned his attention to the woman who had just arrived in his Tardis.

River was wearing high heels and a bright red dress. He actually fumbled the cube in his hand and it falls flat on the floor because her dress is far too tight, and far too short and it clung far too perfectly to her every curve. Her curls were sprung wilder than he's seen them, hair all over the place like the mad spacey thing it was. From the look of her she'd been doing something she probably wasn't supposed to be doing just before she used her vortex to get to the Tardis. She still had her gun in hand.

"Busy day, dear?" He managed to squeak out of himself. Damn the woman. He was no blushing schoolboy and yet the woman did this to him every single time.

"You'll know about it." She winked, "Miss me?"

"Always." He answered. That earned him a kiss. He watched her disarm her weapon easily before removing her heels.

"Fancy a warm meal?" He asked.

A soft smile spread across River's face while she took off her earrings. "Starving actually."

"Dinner it is then." He knew just the place.

"I'm going to change into something more appropriate because this dress is doing _things_ to you already. Going by our history with dinners I'll need you less cross-eyed just in case we have to make a run for it."

"River! I don't get cross-eyed."

She ignored him and kissed his cheek quickly. "Drive safely, my love."

Then she's off, her bare feet making little pitter patter sounds on the Tardis floor. He sets the coordinates first then goes back to studying the cubes some more.

By the time her voice pops up again he'd been so caught up he hadn't even heard her return.

"Doctor, what's this doing here?"

He looked up and froze. River was pointing to a jumper that belonged to her mother. He'd forgotten to hide it. The look on River's face, it was like she'd seen a ghost. He knew the feeling.

After Manhattan they'd both cleared the Tardis of Amy and Rory's things. They placed all of the belongings they'd left behind in a spare room the Tardis created specifically for that. Neither he nor River had stepped into that room since.

"Oh, god. The way you called me wife." River shook her head. "You sounded older, I assumed we were farther off."

"No, River I-"

"Where are you, Doctor?" She asked sternly. She watched him very carefully. "Have you," she blinked rapidly. He knew why. She was forcing her tears away. "Manhattan, have you done Manhattan yet?"

"Yes." He answered. "I have."

"Then why is this here?" She looked back at Amy's sweater and reached a hesitant hand out towards it. Just when it was in reach she stilled and he knew she'd figured him out then.

"Oh, god no. No, you stupid man." River frowned, "You're going back aren't you?"

"River."

She was in his face in seconds, green eyes quickening with fury. "What in the bloody hell are you thinking?! You can't just do that!"

"River, I'm being careful!" He assured, "I swear, right to the point. I'm not interfering with any of our timelines whatsoever."

"Have you lost all of your senses?! There's no such thing as careful enough with us! Sweetie, we are a ticking time bomb!"

He stared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

River shook her head. She sounded so tired when she replied.

"You know, as do I, none of this will end well."

"River…" He reached for her.

"No." She pulled away, "You need to promise me you won't do it again. You can't mix timelines like this. It's careless and dangerous."

"So what then? So I'm just supposed to accept it?" The question tasted foul in his mouth.

"Yes!" River shouted. "You impossible man, yes! Don't you think I've wanted to go back too? They're my parents, Doctor, but I can't. I know why and so do you."

He couldn't find anything else to say to her. There were no excuses, no reasoning he could throw at her in ways of justification. River was River. There would be no lying to her.

River walked over to Amy's sweater. She picked it up and pulled it to her chest.

Melody Pond. He could see it now. The lost little girl looking for her parents. The woman who married him. The woman who died for him.

When he pulled her into his arms she was already crying, as was he.

He whispered apologies into her ear and started kissing her tears away. Because she was the last of his Ponds.

He doesn't promise to stop because he knows he won't.

She doesn't make him promise because she knows he won't either.


End file.
